I love a good diagram. They’re great for simplifying ideas. But, it is worth remembering that the world doesn’t really look like that.
Especially in marketing.
In my recent post, Sales funnels don’t exist, I made the point that even the best marketing operations are a little haphazard. I asked you to replace your mental image of a funnel with one of Buckets, Funnels and Taps.
Today, I’m taking it one step further. If we map on the Thirteen Touchpoint Leaks and the Four Foundation Leaks from Watertight Marketing, you’ll see that (in most cases) marketing operations are more than a bit messy.
Mapping your marketing profit leaks
If you had every one of those leaks, and I’m yet to find a single business that couldn’t tighten up somewhere, then your marketing operation would probably best be visualised like this…
Embrace the tidy-up job…
If you can accept that this what marketing is really like in the real world, then you can start to understand why and where you’re leaking profits. It’s a tidy-up job.
The keen-eyed amongst you will also notice that the numbers start at the bottom and work up. And, that’s where I’d say embrace this idea… when you see marketing as looking more like this then you will readily see why running expensive marketing taps into a process with no funnels and a leaking bucket is futile. With this image in mind you can turn your approach to marketing on its head, and in doing so get much, much, better return on your effort.
Oh, and, like tidying up at home… it’s a job that is never finished.
© Bryony Thomas – The Watertight Marketer | Illustration by Lizzie Everard.
Bryony Thomas
Author & Founder, Watertight Marketing
Bryony Thomas is the creator of the multi-award winning Watertight Marketing methodology, captured in her best-selling book of the same name. She is one of the UK's foremost marketing thinkers, featured by the likes of Forbes, The Guardian, Business Insider and many more, and in-demand speaker for business conferences, in-house sales days and high-level Board strategy days.
